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Through the looking glass

My Journey Into A Reclamation Yard & Beyond

Through the looking glass

First off I’d like to say, I don’t have a background in
architecture or history or design, I’m just a regular person, a mum of one
(soon to be two) who loves vintage things and has a soft spot for anything with
a little rust or chipped paint... ok, so I like junk, but I like my junk
original and functional!

Surprisingly given my soft spot, I’d never been to a
reclamation yard before, I think I always felt a little intimidated, not totally
sure what to expect and whenever I mentioned going the other half muttered
things like ‘bloody expensive’ and ‘it’s a long drive’.

However one cloudy Saturday afternoon having recently
purchased a doer-upper and on the hunt for some suitably old radiators for our
humble abode, I prevailed! On the understanding we were only popping in, I wasn’t
going to find what we were looking for and we certainly weren’t going to buy anything
(obviously). So I Googled ‘Rec Yard Wirral’ and off we set to Barnston!

Two hours and three beautiful cast iron radiators later we had
found what would become one of our favourite places, some of our favourite people,
and what would later become a job for me.

Serendipity? Do I believe in it?
Sometimes I think maybe I should.

Walking round the yard for the first time I felt like Alice
in wonderland, almost a year and countless visits later it hasn’t lost the
magic. I always get a kick watching people discover the place for the first
time, they almost always react the same way drifting back to the office after a
wander round ‘I can’t believe I never knew this place was here’ and ‘I could
stay here forever’ are my favourites but that’s how this place makes you feel, like
you are maybe only the third person to ever find it.

The place resonates with people, that’s for sure. One
lovely lady discovering us for the first time suggested the yard might be sitting
on a ley line and this would explain why the places feels so magic... first, I had
to google ‘ley line’ (not a clue).

Ley lines- Are apparent alignments of places of significance in the geography or
culture of an area, often including man-made structures. They are in the older
sense, ancient, straight trackways in the British landscape, or in the newer
sense, spiritual and mystical alignments of land forms.

(Thank You Wikipedia!)

So, I
checked! We are definitely are not sitting on any of the ley lines currently
thought to exist but this did get me thinking, having collected so many
important and special pieces of architecture in one place had we accidentally created
a ley line of our own?

Ley lines.
Do I believe in them? Honestly? I’m not convinced. You’ll have to come down
here and make up your own mind what makes this place so special.

I’m hoping I can use this blog to take you with me on my adventures as I follow
the magic, visiting the buildings these treasures are being salvaged from,
meeting the people who re-home them and finding out how they are choosing to restore
or re-purpose them, but hey we're an inclusive group, so if there's something or someone you like to see feature in the blog let us know!